Spiders have evolved over about 400 million years. Although there has been knowledge about their sensitive sense of vibration and sharp vision, much about spiders' sense of smell has been unknown to researchers.
Until now. A new study shows that male spiders use their legs to detect, among other things, sex hormones from female spiders. This is done with the help of hairs on their walking legs, so-called sensillae.
"Our discovery puts an end to a decade-long search for these elusive sensillae, which have now been both identified and mapped. This opens up for in-depth studies of the mechanism behind spiders' sense of smell", says biologist Hong-Lei Wang at Lund University, in a press comment.
Together with Lund colleagues Dan-Dan Zhang and Christer Löfstedt, Hong-Lei Wang has taken a closer look at mainly wolf spiders, whose occurrence in Sweden has increased in recent years. They discovered that the so-called olfactory sensillae on the walking legs only occur in adult males, which suggests that the function of the sensillae can be linked to reproduction.
Subsequently, 19 species within 16 spider families were examined – and the researchers found that the sensillae occur in most species, and only in male spiders.
The study – a collaboration between Lund University, University of Greifswald, and Technische Universität Braunschweig – has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
